I assume its something like
Scholes
Best
Ronaldo
Charlton
Law
I don't know. Is giggs or Keane higher or lower than Rooney in something like this?
Rush is our all time goalscorer but I'd put Kenny, Gerrard and maybe a few others ahead of him.
Greenwood or Martinelli
- Thread starter Brightonian
- Start date
Scholes
Best
Ronaldo
Charlton
Law
I don't know. Is giggs or Keane higher or lower than Rooney in something like this?
Rush is our all time goalscorer but I'd put Kenny, Gerrard and maybe a few others ahead of him.
What are you on about? We take punts on players more than the majority of teams in Europe.
The funny thing about Arsenal is that they harp on about all these youngsters but don't have the culture or experienced winners around them to turn them into winners.
Remember back in the day when Arsene was harping on about his next upcoming crop of players? They went on to do nothing and/or got sold to other clubs.
Remember back in the day when Arsene was harping on about his next upcoming crop of players? They went on to do nothing and/or got sold to other clubs.
Greenwood is still the more talented but right now I'd say there's more chance he will be the next Januzaj than the next Ronaldo. Whether his rumoured attitude problems are true, there is definitely something that's seen him stagnate for the last 2 years.
Martinelli has come on exactly as expected. He's a good talent, nothing ridiculously special, and he is living up to it.
Martinelli has come on exactly as expected. He's a good talent, nothing ridiculously special, and he is living up to it.
This is it for me Arsenal have better performances but have still been inconsistent in their results. We are seeing this thread bump as a result of the team raising their level but still being below par.
The club (United) have been woeful since the season began yet are level on points the expectations of the clubs are different. I have always maintained being unbiased towards United players due to overhype however Greenwood despite playing out of position and playing under a very average manager in Ole still is regarded one of the best young players in world football. For me I feel Greenwood just has the higher ceiling however in terms of attributes I would prefer Martinelli on the wings positionally.
How do we exactly? What "punts" have we taken?
£73m on Sancho? £45m on Varane? 500K p/w for Cristiano Ronaldo. Wow. How on Earth did we uncover such gems! Kudos to our scouts for searching the four corners of the back-pages on those transfers!
When did we last sign a player for less than £20/30m that became a regular in our side?
Our academy is one of the best in the world, for a ridiculous number of years we've had at least one academy product on the bench. You can't just use high-profile signings to ignore that fact.
Pardon ?
We're clearly talking about two different things. I don't define 'taking a punt' on a player as bringing someone through from the Academy. My post was in relation to us turning down the chance to sign Martinelli for free/peanuts and how we seemingly only have the ability to sign two/three players person season.
We need to start taking more punts when it comes to recruitment, is my point. We can't keep relying on buying the best player in the league for top dollar, like we did in the 90s and 00s. We'll never catch-up and it will cost us a hell of a lot of cash!
But wasn't Martinelli about 13/14 when he trained with us? I'd argue he'd be just another product of the academy if he eventually came through. I reckon we (like most clubs) already do take these punts but unfortunately the vast majority don't make it.
Greenwood really isn't much better than he was in the 2019/20 season.
He is. Physically he's more adjusted to the PL and his all-round game has come on really well.
Mate we have been total trunks most the season, like really bad.
What you saying here not proving your point well about the gunners
This 4th race will be more interesting and exciting than the title race at the moment. At same time doesn't mean too much in scheme of things, 50mil extra is really it. Would be massive bonus for clubs that aren't really us or yous.
We keep buying the next shiny thing. Its a joke, they get paid, they down tools, we lose out.
In my opinion our scouting system is probably the worst in the league even though we probably have the highest paid scouts.
I don't recall the last player that was scouted at 23/24 for the price you have stated was.
I mean does it take someone to be a scout to uncover Sancho, Varane, Ronaldo?
However; it is a scouts job to judge a players quality, £50m AWB, £80m Maguire, £50m Fred? I want to know what exactly our scouts actually do?
Next raw talent Man Utd unearth is Bellingham from BVB for 70m to 100m and 350k/week. The next big thing to solve the midfield problem and in a few years he will be better than Modric, so pay the prime modric transfer fee and wages for him before he develops into one.
Oh wait.. we had the chance in the summer but ofcourse no one at the club believed in him enough to say he can play first team football.
100% if he joined us, we would have been playing him in U23... a year later he is worth £100m.
Manutd scouting.
At least his "ceiling or potential" is high, well worth the money. The next big thing.
Yep, he has a high ceiling but I cannot see Manutd being in contention to sign him.
I think the larger problem is that the promising young talents that we do buy are left to stagnate. I guarantee that if Dortmund signed Mejbri off us at the start of this season he would have been worth as much as Bellingham already. He's exactly what we need in midfield (press resistant) yet he's not getting a look in. That's before we even mention Amad whose development has been managed disgracefully so far.
I definitely wouldn't put him top 5.
That’s a bit melodramatic. He was supposed to go on loan this season but that got scuppered by injury and has apparently been struggling with various different injuries ever since.
As for Mjebri, if you compare the impact he’s made for Tunisia vs Bellingham for England (and the relative strength of the two squads) you’ll see why your comparison is a hell of a stretch.
Mourinho regularly took punts on players - Bailly, Lindelof, Fred, Dalot - That's literally why they overhauled the strategy to safer options and Brexit FC was born.
I'd personally prefer the strategy under Mourinho - I don't think the profile of players we signed were the problem so much as it was the ability. The scouting should have been better but I felt the positions and profile of players made sense. His first two windows were very popular at the time.
His shooting has gone to shit and his right foot is starting to look like Bebe's left.
It's a shame to see his 2 footed nature going to waste.
That is a problem too, I agree. I don't know what we're waiting for sometimes. I have always been a massive advocate of idea that you won't know how good a player is until you give them a run at any given level.
Who could have predicted McTominay and Rashford would have been the two most recent Academy graduates (bar Greenwood)? I highly doubt any of our coaches or die-hards who watch the Youth games would have picked those two ten years ago...yet here they are because they made the most of circumstances which conspired to give them their chance
Fred not really a 'punt' at £50m. You want to be sure if you're spending £50m! I'll take Bailly and Lindelof, even though they were expensive, because once you take-off the Utd tax, they're probably £20m players to any other club. Dalot, yeah, again, qualifies, albeit we do seem happier to take punts on u21s.
However, surely that really proves the point. Bailly is a good player, been unlucky with injuries, should have been moved on and losses recouped. I'd say all things considered, Lindelof has been a good buy and Dalot was cheap and has played 50 games...so again...yeah, fine with it.
We need more £20/30m punts. We're not going to catch City by signing two £50m players per season, because they are doing exactly the same and starting from a much stronger base. We're going to have to get busy and sustain a large turnover of players until we hit on a squad of 23 lads who are all genuinely good players at the right age.
We lost the luxury of one or two strategic signings every Summer a long, long time ago.
EDIT: Perfect example - Dan James. Came in, did a job, contributed, provided competition for places, didn't quite cut-it, made £10m flogging him to Leeds. It's win-win. I made the point on the Alvarez thread, he's so cheap he'd have to be so unbelievably bad for us not to get back £17m if we decided he wasn't quite our level.
Disagree. Mejbri was at his second international tournament this season already and we are only half way through. He never really had a chance to play before now
Always love how you get like this regarding Scholes.
I can't wait for his next thread where you jump in to talk about those Scholes quotes from other players before anyone else mentions them.
Even though at this point in their careers I would rather not compare because Bellingham has actual evidence of being good, your comparison is already including Bellingham that has already played for Dortmund. That's the crux of that poster's hypothetical. That if Mejbri played for Dortmund (thus getting more first team playing time), he would be as good as Bellingham. You can't then compare Bellingham playing for England as evidence when he's far more ready (thanks to Dortmund) to play against PL level talent compared to Mejbri whose entire first team experience is playing for Tunisia.
Martinelli is our best player. He is better than Saka, Odegaard, Lacazette, ESR. Martinelli just doesn't know he is our best player. He is confident and loves to run at players. He just needs more swagger and attitude. He is still very humble.
I think he will be in the Brazil squad for the world cup and will play his way into the first team.
Martinelli isnt just a 'good prospect', he is a generational talent. Best young player we have had since Cesc, but Martinelli has a higher glass ceiling
No more chance of Saka being at City in 2-3 years than Greenwood signing for City. Saka is an Arsenal fan.
And this whole Arsenal are Man City's feeder club thing is a joke. Its been 9 years since Sagna left us for City. Almost a decade since a player moved from Arsenal to Man City.
And when you look at the 5 players who left. Adebayor, Clichy, Sagna, Kolo Toure, Nasri - were not exactly talking about the best played to have played for is. We actually mugged them off silly with Adebayor for 25m. Arsene knew what he was doing selling them that toxic virus.
We have actually lost more quality to you guys, even if Sanchez didnt work out, he had RVP were our two best players in the post Henry era.
How would you rate your chances of signing Saka? Because its the same as Man City's - slim.
And if they were to sign him, they would have to smash their transfer record, when you spend 100m on 26 year old Grealish, you cant turn arouns and bid less for 20 year old Saka . To say Grealish is the most expensive headband in history would be an understatement. He slows their play down and thats why he cant break into thier first team - and he never will. Pep will never pick him week to week.
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How many Arsenal players have signed for their rivals compared to ManUtd players?
I don't think City will sign him though, at best he will be rotational player for them and he will cost too much for that.
Mine would be in this order;
1. Charlton
2. Giggs
3. Scholes
4. Best
5 Law
There is no way that Scholes should be ahead of Charlton in anyones list to be honest.
Players we wanted to keep that were high quality and knew we would suffer for it - RVP, Sanchez, Nasri
Other generic players Sagna, Clichy, Toure, Adebayor, Giroud, Chamberlain.